Category: Guest Questions

With the return to more regular posting over Summer, we have received many questions that we are going to answer for you today. If you want to know anything about Transport in NSW, please ask us! We always respond straight way (no waiting for the post) and really love hearing from you. We have decided to keep names anonymous.

What are the bus regions?

The bus regions refer to the Sydney Metropolitan Bus Contract regions that are used to determine what bus operator is to operate a particular route. They are numbered 1 through 15.

Will my region (Region 7) be privatised?

No. At this time Regions 7-9 will continue to be operated by government owned STA. Only Region 6 is changing hands at this time.

Is the light rail really that late? How can the issues they have had make the project that late?

Yes, the light rail is running THAT late. The progress you are seeing now is actually where the project should have been a year ago. It is a mixture of poor planning, poor workmanship and over-engineering of a simple project.

Can you look at where we can fly on specific planes – like the A380 or 747?

Most certainly! Look out for those in upcoming “Where Can You Fly?” segments.

Can you please do a feature of Leichhardt Bus Depot and Region 6 privatisation?

Of course. In fact, its already up on this link. More region 6 privatisation posts can be found under “Farewell Region 6”

How do buses on the 370 always bunch up?

The 370 is a very long and complex route, buses can get caught up at traffic lights or in slow moving traffic. Once one bus is late, it begins to pick up more passengers and the bus behind picks up less making is faster, which often brings the buses together. The 370 also has new buses forming from the depot at each end regularly, if one bus already in the cycle but an on-time bus from the depot comes at the same time, they can often end up together as well.

When is Macquarie Park Station closing?

At this point, no date has been given for the ECRL closure. It is likely to be in the second half of this year.

What Bus apps do you use?

I have three apps that I use.

1. TripView – for viewing individual routes that I take often. I use this as my everyday real time app.
2. NextThere – for viewing all the upcoming services at a stop. Perfect for working out what is the right route to catch from your nearest stop.
3. AnyTrip – To see what buses are in the network and what they are operating. My favourite for finding the Christmas or special livery buses.

Welcome to our guest questions for July! Please continue to submit questions via our website and also through Instagram and Facebook.

When will you post again? – Anonymous

Soon! I’m going to be back with all the regular segments this August! All of the posts that were missed will be put up very very soon. I’m so sorry the posts have been missed. If you want to see what is coming up go visit our Instagram where all the posts are up to date.

Are printed F3/F4 timetables with Barangaroo avalible? – J. Nho

Yes, they are avalible and you can get them from the staff at Barangaroo Wharf or by putting in a mail request here.

Are printed timetables for Interline/Hillsbus/Other Operators avalible? – bst_secret_vlogs

Yes, they are avalible and you can request them through the individual operators website or through this link.

The Nine Ways intersection is now a nightmare since they installed lights, are they going to fix it? – C. Gee

Unfortaunly not. They will however change the phasing and layout over time. 

Is there a bus from Clovelly to Bondi Junction? – Anonoymous 

Yes and it’s this weeks route of the week. The 360 operates between North Clovelly and Bondi Junction. It operates through much of Clovelly.

When will my requests, the 288, 294, 289 be Route of the Week? – ZACH A.

Look out for them in upcoming routes of the week, there is currently a slight backlog though due to the overwhelming demand for everyones favourite route to be featured, so it might not be till October for all of the routes to be featured. Despite the backlog, we are still accepting requests for route of the week, but we encourage them to be private routes.

What do you think of the new double decker buses we’ll be getting? – CAROL M.

I think they are good for long range routes such as the 607x, L90, M61, etc where the bus is travelling 20+ kms without stopping. Double Deckers are not suited to suburban running where passengers are getting on and off every 500 metres, for which bendy buses are better.

When will the new growth buses services from the budget be introduced? – ALEX M.

The route shown in the plan are simply the routes that are guaranteed to receive timetable upgrades this year. The exact dates of implementation is likely yet to be decided.

Can we request buses for the Private Routes or other modes of transport (train, ferry) – ANONYMOUS

Of course, we greatly encourage that our readers request their favourite routes regardless of mode or operator, this includes private buses. One upside to requesting a differnt mode to Sydney Buses is you wont ahve to wait as long as the backlogs are non-existent.

Why do some services not stop outside school despite being scheduled to do so? – WILL P.

This is a major issue, some services may no be stopping as they are already overcrowded or the divers don’t believe all intending passengers will fit. In other instances, it may be that the driver just forgot to stop.

What are charter buses? – ROGIER W.

Charter Buses are buses that have been hired out to somebody for private use. Occasionally STA drivers will us a Charter desto when dead running to distinguish them from regular route services.

Do you have any information on the Sydney Bus Muesem or any other transport museums in Sydney? – HILDE

The Sydney Bus Museum is located at the historic Leichhardt Tramshed and is open every Sunday from 10am-4pm excluding long weekends. Tickets are $15 for an individual and $35 for a family of 4. They offer a World War II exhibition and Vintage bus rides to the QVB via the ANZAC Bridge in addition to their extensive collection of vintage buses. 

The Sydney Tramway Mueseum is in Loftus and opens 10am-3pm Wednesdays and 10am-5pm Sundays. Tickets are $18 for individuals, $46 for families. This includes a tram ride through the Royal National Park.

Who operates bus services in Parramatta? There seem to be loads of differnet one, is this correct? -ANONYMOUS

As Parramatta is a very large regional hub, there are a number of differnt bus operators who run services to Parramatta which I have listed for you below.

• Hillsbus – Services to the Hills District and North-West T-Way.
• State Transit – Services to the Inner West and Victoria Road.
• Transdev NSW – Services to the Southern Suburbs and Parramatta Free Shuttle.
• Transit Systems Sydney – Services on the Liverpool-Parramatta T-Way.

The 353. In the morning it is so full of students, doing the right thing catching public transport to school, that it more often than not drives straight past the stops at Coogee and Clovelly without even slowing down. How about putting more of these buses on in peak morning times Transport NSW??? One bus route can’t effectively service all the coast from Pagewood to Bondi Junction. – ALIZA PLUNKETT
The main issue here is the lack of any dedicated school services in the Coogee basin. It is certainly the case that one route with can’t service all customers efficiently or effectively. Whilst the government has made some attempts to rectify the issue with some limited services starting from Coogee, a dedicated school service would instead help clear the 353 for other commuters who otherwise miss out.

As a regular commuter on the 373, it can take me up to 15-20 minutes to get from Coogee Public school (where I get on at Carr st) to Belmore Rd in Randwick. Going through The Spot is a nightmare with so many buses trying to get around the round-about, then turn left onto Cuthill St, then right onto Avoca St. It’s so annoyingly slow! What does Conor think is the best solution? Should I just suck it up and walk up to Randwick and get on there? Or walk over to the 374…which I sometimes do…my destination is Surry Hills. I need some public transport wisdom! 🙂 – JILLIAN LEWIS

Unfortunately your options here are limited. I would suggest that the 374 could be better, however it can also suffer from traffic issues along Alison Road. If you think your can walk to Randwick quicker than the bus, then do the walk, not only will your journey be quicker, you get the benefits of the exercise

Has anyone else noticed that since the introduction of Opal cards bus drivers now don’t care if you pay. They used to check how many zones you were going, and the age of your kids etc. Now they don’t care, they let you on with no questions, even if your card does not work. – CAMILLE GEE

This is certainly a big issue. Drivers are required to ensure that all passenger have a valid Opal Card. The issue is that STA drivers receive no penalty if they fail to check all passengers, unlike some other operators, who get in trouble when an inspector finds a driver who haven’t been enforcing the rules. In addition, since the start of Opal, drivers now check tickets less as computers now deal with ensuring correct fares are payed, when previously it was based on honesty.

Another point. Why is there no shuttle bus from mascot train station to unsw and Randwick? This train station is much closer to those destinations than central station is.

From both Randwick and UNSW, you can catch the 400 or 418 to Mascot Station. It would take about 30 minutes on either due to the indirect route. I agree that it would be useful to have a shuttle between either Mascot or Green Square stations as it would be much quicker and reduce the number of passengers on the overcrowded 370 and 400 routes.

Is it possible to solve the Belmore/Alison Road bottleneck? – HELEN PITT

Randwick Junction is undoubtedly the biggest bottleneck in the area. The sheer volume of traffic is larger than the capacity on the roads in the area. The best way to solve this is by increasing the use and availability of Public Transport. This would hopefully decrease the number of cars on the roads, reducing the bottleneck. Better Traffic light phasing can also help as traffic lights often cause much of the bottleneck.

Any thoughts or predictions as to whether the 343 route will continue post introduction of light railway. In particular I’m interested in why it goes as far as Chatswood? – IAN GRAY

I have no doubts that the 343 will continue to operate once the light rail is introduced as it services a different area to the light rail. On the issue of the Chatswood extention, the reason for it is the lack of layover space in the CBD which prompted STA to merge some routes which is what happened with the 343.

Don’t forget to submit your questions for next months edition!

Some Questions have been modified for clarity.

Here at TFNSW blog we love receiving your questions and where possible, we squeeze an answer into one of our regular posts for you. But sometimes those questions, whilst relevant don’t fit into any of the regular posts scaffolds or you may have to wait ages to see a response. So we here at TFNSWBlog have decided to answer the questions we received throughout the month of April. We are hoping that provided we recive more questions, that this will become a regular feature on the last Saturday of the Month.

What are the proposed changes to the bus network between Coogee and the CBD once the light rail starts operation? Will we lose our direct service to Central? – CONCERNED 374 PASSENGERS

The changes to the bus network once the light rail opens are yet to be determined. TFNSW claims a proposed network will be announced sometime in 2018. About 2 years ago a draft of a potential network was leaked and that would suggest that the 374 would be rerouted to Edgecliff and as such you would unfortunately lose your direct bus to Central, but at this time we cannot say for certain if this is actually the case. 

What will happen to the rest of QANTASs A380 flights given they are pulling them from both the routes the fly out of Melbourne and replacing them with 787s? – ANONYMOUS 

This is not enteirly true, whilst they are pulling the a380 from QF9-10 MEL-DXB-LHR, they are not pulling it from QF93/94 MEL-LAX. In the case of the flights on the MEL-LAX route, it is QF95/96 that is getting the 787s. This service is currently operated by 747s and the aircraft used to fly this route are expected to be the next to leave the QANTAS fleet and be retired. 

In regards to what will happen to the other a380 flights, there are likely to be some changes due to the way QANTAS current schedules the a380s. The a380s currently run SYD-DXB-LHR-DXB-MEL and MEL-DXB-LHR-DXB-SYD. This will obviously be changed with the removal of the MEL-DXB-LHR segment of the schedule. This will could possibly see the retiming of QF1/2 between SYD-DXB-LHR to ensure maxiumum utislasation of the planes and also potentially the retiming of other  a380 flights. 

In addition, QANTAS has announced that there I’ll be a more regular return to the a380 on QF127/128 between SYD-HKG. The a380 currently serves this route 3 times a week in January and February but they are hinting at more regular flights throught the year. On top of this, there is also the suggestion that there may even be a380s bound for QF5/6 between SYD-SIN and QF29/30 between MEL-HKG.

Regarding the George St light rail, when will it and its various sections be completed, and how exactly will it affect traffic? – USER4206972042

The expected completion date for all works is April 2018, this includes George St. There is however the possibility that it may be later due to the unexpected finding of unideified utilities under parts of George St.

The main impact on traffic will be the complete pedestrianisation between Bathurst Street at Town Hall and Hunter Street at Wynyard, a 1 kilometre section of George Street. For the rest of George St, a single traffic lane will be maintained in each direction on the outsode of the light rail tracks. All cross traffic will be maintained along the entirety of George St.